


I had a family!

by GemmaRose



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, can be Big Four if you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:58:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Tooth hadn't had Jack's baby teeth? What if he'd always been Winter?</p><p>de-anon from rotg-kink</p>
            </blockquote>





	I had a family!

Jack paced the canyon, tugging at his hair. He had to fix the staff, but how? Baby Tooth kept fluttering around his mouth, and he batted her away gently. "Not now, BT. I need to _think_."

The tiny fairy fluttered up and perched awkwardly on his nose, pointing to her own teeth and then hopping back into the air to point at his mouth.

Jack sighed and opened his mouth, and when she touched his front teeth he almost fell back on his butt. He knew things, things from before the world discovered itself fully, from the age when spirits didn't need belief to be seen. His memories flashed by him in a blur, but three faces kept recurring. One boy and two girls, each of a different race but all with improbably blue eyes. There was a woman, too, and when she flickered by Jack felt the tingle of a remembered embrace, the echo of being loved so deeply it was a certainty down to his very core.

Baby Tooth cheeped, fluttering back, and Jack grabbed her out of the air to kiss her tiny head. "Thanks Baby Tooth, I owe you one." he beamed, grabbing up the broken pieces of the staff and running towards the end of the gorge. The ice built up beneath his feet, creating a slope much too steep for any man to climb but providing the perfect lunch ramp.

"Wind!" he called in the most ancient tongue he could remember. It snatched him up instantly, and as they flew Jack fused the pieces of wood back together. First he had to save his friends, then he could find his family.

\-----

Summer tugged on the lead chain which bound her ankle to the wall for what felt like the millionth time. "We need to get out." she groaned, slumping to the floor. "What haven't we tried yet?"

"Windows?" Autumn muttered, fire dancing around her fingertips.

"Chain's too short." Spring grumbled.

"We could pick the lock?"

"Tried that." Autumn said darkly. "Too many spells."

"Call for help?" Summer suggested listlessly.

"We're at the centre of the freaking planet, who'd hear us?" Spring sighed, flopping against the wall.

"I would."

All three Seasons were immediately on their feet, though the door was out of reach for all of them but Spring. "Brother?"

The door creaked, and all three spirits ducked as it exploded inwards. "And this is why I always pick the vacation spots."

Autumn's hand glowed with blue flames as her power amplified, and a touch was enough to melt the chain right off. With all four of them gathered, each was ten times as powerful. Her hand ceased glowing the instant she embraced her sibling, kissing his cheeks and then the rest of his face. Summer was next to free herself, prising the cuff open from her ankle with sheer strength, and Spring joined their group hug not long after with an intricate chain of flowers trailing from his leg.

Winter pulled back to look at each of them in turn, refreshing his foggy memories of faces he'd known and loved for milennia. Summer's healthy tanned skin and choppy sun-streaked brown hair, Autumn's frizzy mane and pinkish face, Spring's short black ponytail and skin so dirty you couldn't hardly tell its true colour. Sky eyes locked in turn, the glacial blue of Winter afternoons meeting Summer nights and Spring evenings, finally settling on the crisp merriment of Autumn mornings.

"Sorry it took so long." he grinned sheepishly, "You wouldn't believe the shit I had to go through to remember who you guys even were."

"It's amazing you even found us at all." Spring beamed, "When I reset it took you guys a whole decade to convince me I was always one of you."

Winter smiled and grabbed his siblings' hands, tugging them towards the door. "C'mon, Mom's been working herself to death covering for you all."

Summer winced, and a sluggish breeze gathered around her feet. "Is she gonna be mad?"

Winter shook his head. "Only at the bastard who stuck you all down here."

Spring summoned up a mount and hopped on as it spread its wings. "I'm sick of this place. Lead the way, brother."

Autumn climbed on Spring's mount and nodded. "I'm pretty sure no-one would mind if I set this place on fire?"

Summer shook her head. "Better ask mom first, a molten core would change stuff up top."

Autumn pouted, and Winter laughed. "I didn't even know how much I missed you guys."

\-----

Winter hung upside down from a sturdy branch, watching his mom worry over his siblings with a small grin. All these years wondering why he was intangible and inaudible, the few days of wondering if he'd had a human home and family, and all along the answers had been under his feet. Spring batted away their mother's hands and stalked over to Jack's tree, hopping up to sit in a branch he way humans would take the stairs two at a time. "So." he grinned, hanging a foot down in Winter's face. "You finally ditched the ye-olde-settlers look."

Winter chuckled, batting away the appendage though it smelled of nothing stronger than grass. "Yeah. It got kinda ripped up."

Spring grinned. "Seriously though, the _Guardians_?"

Winter's cheeks iced up. "Shut up."

Spring snorted. "I mean yeah they're cute and all, but I thought you had more class than that. You coulda hung with the Norse Gods at least. They might've given you Jotunheim again."

Winter laughed hysterically. "Didn't they try to make Autumn, like, Hela's apprentice or something?"

Spring swung so he was hanging next to his brother. "It took us years to get her to stop hiding dead things in the harvest."

Winter flipped himself upright and sprawled out across the branch so he could curl up and laugh like a maniac. "I totally forgot about that."

Autumn kicked their tree, and Winter caught himself on a cold wisp of air before alighting gently on the grass. "Hey sis." he grinned, sending a thread of air to freeze her crown of leaves. "Wanna go mess with some people?"

She hit his arm and shook the frozen leaves from her head, conjuring new ones to take their place. "Southern Hemisphere only, and don't even think about bringing up that incident with the Viking crowd again, especially in earshot of mom."

 

Winter laughed merrily and leapt into the sky, giving their mom a wave as Autummn rose after him on a breeze that smelled of leaf piles and baking bread. "Catch me if you can!" he called back to her, and the chase began.

Nobody stopped them as they raced over and through cities, and Jack Frost melted away as they went, just one more memory in Winter's vast lifetime. The pair tumbled through the sky, going down near the south of Brazil in a flurry of early morning frost and gem coloured leaves, and it wasn't Jack Frost who pinned the sky-eyed girl but Winter. The twin son and daughter of Mother Nature and Death laughed and wrestled until Autumn won out by tickling her twin's armpit.

The other twins, born of Mother Nature and a sun god, greeted Winter warmly when he arrived. Autumn was doing her duty and spreading harvest season, and Spring gave Winter a clap on the shoulder before taking off for his own duties. Winter and Summer let their mother check hem over without complaint, and when they flew off in tandem it was to re-introduce Winter to their old friends and helpers.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to keep it from being a crossover, I really did. They're all in the 14-18 range, and I'll leave it up to your imagination how MN managed to give birth to two sets of twins with different daddies ;)


End file.
